Cameron has 'abandoned' hungry children
Friday, 30 October 2015
Local journalist, broadcaster and writer, Geoff Tansey has for the past 12 months chaired the The Fabian Commission on Food and Poverty which launched its report on Wednesday.
Drawing on public hearings, expert testimony and the insights of people with experience of managing poverty, the Commission has uncovered a crisis of food access for many households in the UK. There are multiple cases of parents – usually mothers – going hungry to feed their children or having to prioritise calories over nutrients to afford their weekly food shop. Many people are feeling a deep sense of anxiety from the struggle to manage serious squeezes in household budgets that arises from the cost of living rising faster than income.
The Daily Mirror wrote on the day the report was published, "A year-long independent commission found the Government leaves it to food banks to provide meals for the UK's poorest households."
The Mirror goes on to report Geoff Tansey as saying, "David Cameron has made an admirable commitment to tackling poverty.
"But for food - people's most basic need - he currently has no means of achieving this aim and no plan to deliver a reduction in food banks, let alone tackle the other links between food and poverty.
"The commission has even found that the Government has no count of the number of people who currently lack secure access to nutritious, affordable food."
The Huffington Post added that the Commission's report says, "We need to recognise that food banks and charitable food providers are not solutions to household food insecurity. They are symptoms of society's failure to ensure everybody is sustainably well-fed."
The Repor on Food and Poverty also notes that many people too poor to afford food do not use food banks for fear of the stigma of being labelled.
See also
Fabian Commmission on Food and Poverty
Daily Mirror - 28 October 2015
Huffington Post - 28 October 2015
The Independent - 28 October 2015